


Lazy-Fancy Summer Recipes (by the Song-Covey Sisters)

by Ashling



Category: To All the Boys I've Loved Before (Movies)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Food, Gen, Never Have I Ever (TV) References, POV Second Person, Recipes, Slice of Life, Unconventional Fanworks Exchange 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25215751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: Three sisters, three recipes. Which is the lazy-fanciest?Margot's appetizer • asparagus bruschettaLara Jean's main dish • lemon-garlic orzoKitty's dessert • strawberry-striped orange popsicles
Relationships: Katherine "Kitty" Song-Covey & Lara Jean Song-Covey & Margot Song-Covey
Comments: 32
Kudos: 25
Collections: Unconventional Fanwork Exchange 2020





	Lazy-Fancy Summer Recipes (by the Song-Covey Sisters)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pirotess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirotess/gifts).



### MEAL THEME: LAZY-FANCY 

It is a Sunday custom for the Song-Covey sisters to make themselves a meal on the first Sunday of the month when their dad is away with his fishing buddies. Since this is Margot's first Sunday lunch back from Scotland, she gets to choose the theme, and since she was very sweaty from a neighborhood jog when Kitty asked her what Sunday's theme was going to be, the theme is "Lazy-Fancy" and she made up the scoring rules two hours later.

Time to make: Less than one minute 

Lazy Rating (10 most lazy, 1 least lazy): 10. It was literally the first thing that popped into her head.

Fancy Rating (10 most fancy, 1 least fancy): 2. Fancy itself is not a very fancy word, since there's something a bit childish about it, and lazy is also not a fancy word; it is fancy to be lazy but not fancy to strive for laziness. Laziness should be effortless and completely unconsidered in order to be fancy. One extra point for the hyphen making it look kinda like a double-barreled last name of a truly terrible factory owner's son, but like, still very un-fancy.

Total Score: 12. Mediocre.

### APPETIZER: ASPARAGUS BRUSCHETTA

You are Margot, and you've never made this before, but you thought it would be real cute to invent a bruschetta in the colors of the Italian flag, so here you are.

**Ingredients**

  * 1 can tomato paste
  * 6 shallots
  * 1 tin sardines
  * Olive oil
  * 1 bundle Asparagus
  * Minced garlic to taste (from giant jar of minced garlic)
  * Salt to taste
  * 1 store-bought baguette
  * 1 plastic container of goat cheese bits



Time to make: 20 minutes, but most of that you just spent sitting around on your phone while things baked

**Instructions**

First, open up the fridge door and realize that your father already made that tomato paste concoction that you like, and since you just got home from being away for a long time studying in Scotland, you have a lot of goodwill stored up in him, so you can totally use his food. (He likes to spread a bit of the tomato paste on his quesadillas.)

To make the tomato paste concoction, which is literally an Allison Roman recipe, you just slice the shallots thinly, cook the hell out of them on medium-high till they're all brown and caramelized-looking, add in the anchovies and cook for 1 minute, add in the entire can tomato paste and cook for another 2 minutes.

But of course you don't have to do that, 'cause your dad already did it for you.

Anyways, take the tomato paste concoction out, along with the rest of your ingredients. Preheat the oven to 350. While it's heating, slice up your bread thinly and arrange it on baking sheets. Whenever the oven goes ding! throw the bread in there for 10 minutes.

Wash the asparagus, put it in a big bowl, toss it with olive oil, salt, and garlic to taste. This means you put in as much oil, salt, and garlic as you think is appropriate, and then you add roughly two tablespoons more of minced garlic. Because.

Put parchment paper on a baking sheet, then lay your asparagus out on the baking sheet. Pause for roughly 2 minutes to bicker with your youngest sister about whether or not it makes a difference how the asparagus is laid out, because you secretly just think it looks nice laid out in rows and Kitty thinks you're being real anal about it for someone who named this the "LAZY-fancy" Sunday lunch. But whatever, what does she know? This will get an even bake.

When the bread's out, pop the asparagus in for 10 minutes.

When the asparagus is out, pop the bread in for an extra 2 minutes to get it nice and warm. Meantime, cut up the asparagus into bits.

Do not prepare for serving in any way; simply tell your sisters to assemble their bruschetta however they want. You, of course, have a Specific Process—you take a piece of toasted baguette, spread it with a thin layer of tomato paste concoction, sprinkle on some goat cheese, and _then_ add bits of asparagus. But that's just you and you can't be arsed to make everybody else's for them. C _an't be arsed_ is something you learned overseas and you really think it should become a thing in the US, because it applies to so many things, especially when one has two younger sisters.

 **Lazy Rating** (10 most lazy, 1 least lazy): 7. Points deducted for the fact that there's two items that need to be cooked (the bread toasted, the asparagus tossed and baked). But points definitely added for the sheer audacity of stealing your dad's food for your recipe and making your sisters complete the assembly of their own food.

 **Fancy Rating** (10 most fancy, 1 least fancy): 10. The ingredients aren't massively expensive but bruschetta sounds posh and so does goat cheese, and it photographs beautifully. It's definitely something that could pass for hors d'oeuvres at a fancy party.

 **Total Score:** 18\. Fantastic!

### MAIN DISH: LEMON-GARLIC ORZO

You are Lara Jean, and you badly want pasta. That's it, that's your one motivation.

**Ingredients**

  * A whole box of orzo
  * 7 strips thick cut bacon
  * 2 cups frozen peas
  * Some olive oil (like...3 tablespoons? 2?)
  * Minced garlic, hella
  * Lemon juice, some (literally just like squeeze that little lemon shaped bottle until the thing in your heart tells you it's enough)
  * Salt and pepper to taste
  * Parmesan for grating



Time to make: 20 minutes

**Instructions**

Try not to feel weird about cooking in the kitchen while Margot's also cooking, because she was away before and you were like in charge of the kitchen while she was gone and you were the grownup and now that she's back you don't feel like the grownup anymore. Dad doesn't count. Sorry to Dad, but he's just so bad. And it's not even because he's a man and blah blah blah gender stereotypes, seriously, he can clean and he can sew pretty well, but hoo boy. The kitchen is not for him.

Anyways, boil a pot of water for your orzo and cook it according to the package instructions. You really can't replace orzo with, like, linguine or whatever because then the peas and bacon kinda fall to the bottom of the serving bowl and you end up with a terrible bits-to-pasta ratio up top and down below.

Fry 7 strips bacon. While they're frying, microwave your frozen peas in 20 second increments until they seem pretty warm and good to go. When the bacon is done frying, take it off the pan and turn off the heat but leave the pan on the heat. Add your oil and your garlic. So much garlic. There will be no boyfriends at this lunch; there will be no college admissions people at this lunch; there will be no elderly relatives at this lunch. You can smell as horribly as you wish. More garlic! 

The hot pan will cook the garlic in the oil a little bit even though the heat isn't on and that's good. 

Pat down the bacon with paper towels because that's what your mom taught you to do with bacon, then cut it up into bacon bits.

When the orzo is done, drain the water from it in a sieve, then dump it in the really big glass bowl. You may be tempted to dump it in the medium sized red bowl because the glass one seems really big and takes up a lot of space in the dishrack and the red one would do just as well. That is the devil talking. The red one will _not_ do just as well—you're going to be doing lots of mixing so you need space to mix.

Add in your peas and your bacon. Stir like twice. Then add lemon juice to your oil-garlic mix in the pan, however much looks right. Maybe like a ratio of 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to 3 tablespoons garlic oil? You dunno. It's summertime. Lemon is a summery ingredient. Add a little bit more.

Pour juice-oil-garlic mix onto your pasta, then stir vigorously so the garlicky taste gets everywhere. Salt and pepper to taste. People can add parmesan if they want to. And they should want to. 

**Lazy Rating** (10 most lazy, 1 least lazy): 2. There's lots of components and lots of steps to cooking, and there's not really any shortcuts you can take. You also aren't resting or looking at your phone during any of this, it's mostly cooking all the way through. The only reason this isn't a 1 is because it actually doesn't take that long to cook, considering that it's a main dish.

 **Fancy Rating** (10 most fancy, 1 least fancy): 8. Lemon-garlic orzo just seems very fancy and it does have a lovely light summery taste to it. Probably a dish you'd get compliments on if you were a suburban mom. Probably could be fancier—for instance, you could use some more fancy pig-thing like prosciutto or whatever it is that Italians say is the only thing to put on REAL pasta carbonara, but like, you did your best for fancy and it came out pretty fancy.

 **Total Score:** 10\. Abysmal! 50%! A failing grade, if this were being graded!

### DESSERT: STRAWBERRY-STRIPED ORANGE POPSICLES

You are Kitty, and you're completely absorbed in binge-watching this new Netflix series, Never Have I Ever, so you went real heavy on _lazy_.

**Ingredients**

  * Strawberries
  * Orange juice from the carton



Time to make: literally no idea, you were way too invested in Devi's love life to pay attention to what you were actually doing

**Instructions**

Ask Margot if you can skip cooking. After all, dessert is the least important part of the meal, right? It's just extra calories. 

You have been informed by Margot that it's the thought that counts, and you have had to spend five minutes convincing Margot that you do not have body image issues due to the offhand comment about calories. Go ask Lara Jean if you can skip cooking. Lara Jean says yes. Go tell Margot Lara Jean says that you can skip cooking, so it's fine. 

You have been stymied by your two sisters texting about you behind your back. You must cook.

Go get a set of popsicle molds and some popsicle sticks. Luckily, your dad is very into crafting, so the sticks aren't hard to find. Go pour about an inch of orange juice into the popsicle molds; put the molds in the freezer. Go away and watch some Netflix.

When you remember that popsicles exist, wander back to the fridge. Take out strawberries, wash them, cut them into bits. You may eat as many as you want during this process. You may even eat as many unwashed strawberries as you want. Margot is on another run and Lara Jean is FaceTiming her boyfriend. You can really burn down the house if you felt like it, but sadly you lost your taste for arson a couple years ago. That is another story entirely.

Take out the popsicle molds and poke the orange juice with a finger to see if it's frozen. It has. Make a layer of strawberry bits, stick the tip of the popsicle stick in them so they help the popsicle stick stay upright, and then pour another inch of orange juice on top. Go away and watch Netflix.

Margot is back from her run and she doesn't want you to leave out a bowlful of strawberry bits for an hour. If flies get in the house, they'll feast on that and then soon enough the whole house will be full of flies. Try to explain to her that there aren't any flies in the house, so it's a moot point. "Lose" the argument but mostly because Margot's really stubborn, not like you, because you're a reasonable person.

Go add another strawberry-juice layer. Go back to Netflix.

Get kind of hungry and eat three slices of Havarti cheese sans accompaniment, plus a Reese's peanut butter cup. Check the popsicle molds. They look alright. Take one of them out and eat it—it's not a full popsicle but you can't be bothered waiting. Pour juice in to fill the rest of the popsicle molds. You really should do like two more layers of strawberry but whatever.

Go back to Netflix. Final episode, Devi on the beach. Start crying.

 **Lazy Rating** (10 most lazy, 1 least lazy): 10. Spectacularly lazy. Lazy beyond what most minds could fathom. The lack of commitment on display due to the fact that there are two evenly spaced strawberry stripes followed by no more stripes? Audacious. Extraordinary. Magnificent. It looks so stupid. 

**Fancy Rating** (10 most fancy, 1 least fancy): 3. Strawberries make things fancy, but popsicles are a kid's treat. You wouldn't find this at a fancy party unless it was a pool party, which is not the fanciest type of party anyway unless there's like, models and rappers [and Usher is singing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIRv5zWbv_g) or something. Which isn't what's happening.

 **Total Score:** 13\. Pretty good!

### WINNER: MARGOT

Margot did pick the challenge, so you might think that she had the advantage all along, but considering the fact that she didn't even fully think through what she was making until she started making it, it turned out great and scored well in both the lazy and fancy categories, whereas Lara Jean did poorly in the lazy category and Kitty did poorly in the fancy category. Overall, Margot's greatest achievement had to be in the lazy category, for not fully assembling her actual dish and making everyone do it themselves like PEASANTS.

Very delicious. Since Margot won, she gets to choose who the loser of the other two is, and it's Kitty, despite Kitty having the better total score, because really, Kitty? Really? Really? The loser has to go do the dishes.

Dad gets his revenge (re: tomato paste concoction) by eating up all the leftover orzo when he gets home at like 10pm, slightly tipsy and very sociable, but it's not so terrible a revenge because Margot wasn't counting on eating that later. She's got a pint of Ben & Jerry's for her midnight snack.


End file.
